Amana Marie Le Blanc
Literature 5535: American Romanticism
Professor Craig White
September 29, 2000

The Development of "the Sublime" in American Romanticism

For the purposes of my inquiry I will cite a very broad definition of the sublime variations of which have become generally recognized. In his "Analytic of the Sublime," Kant defines the sublime as "that in comparison with which everything else is small…[and]…the mere ability to think which shows a faculty of the mind surpassing every standard of sense" (Kant Critique of Judgment §25, 88-89). The sublime, thus defined, is a feeling of the individual upon being presented with phenomena that exceeds his or her mental power to conceptualize. The aesthetic category that is the sublime is a fundamental element of Romanticism regardless of geographic local. Nevertheless, the subject relevant to my inquest is the sublime as represented in American literature.

In American literature the sublime first distinctly manifests itself in the pre-Romantic literature of the early colonist, perhaps the most notable of which, is Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative. Rowlandson narrative is entrenched in Puritan ideology. The socio-political circumstances that contributed to her captivity are less pertinent to the tale then is the religious template from which she constructs the experience. She sees before her not two political opponents, or even warring nations, but rather the host of heavenly beings (God, and the colonist in his image), versus the legions of hell (the American-Indians). The fact that both of the aforementioned groups of imagined players are (both in being and action) beyond human, or human conception, make them the quintessential purveyors of the sublime.

Rowlandson encounters the sublime in her unmitigated horror of her American-Indian captors. They are, in her estimation, "hell-hounds, roaring, singing, ranting" (N 150). They are beings ‘larger than life,’ the contemplation of which awaken her intuition that there forces evil beyond human understanding. Her graphic descriptions of the "hell-hounds[’]" atrocious acts of violence make conceivable her conclusion that the acts are perpetrated by some sublimely malevolent force. The reader imaginatively stands on the bloody floor with Rowlandson and watches horror-struck as her children and loved ones are mangled around her; and if the reader cannot (or will not) attribute such malice to human nature, she will conclude, like Rowlandson, that it is the work of some great unfathomable evil force. Furthermore, because of the fact that Rowlandson conceptualizes her captors as being sublimely evil, she need not attribute motivation or provide explanation for their actions; they and acts are simply beyond the scope of human understanding.

As the counterpart to Rowlandson’s sublime evil, she must believe in a powerful force of virtue (God) who she credits with anything good that can be drawn from the experience. Rowlandson’s God preserves her life, keeps her sane and causes everything to happen in accordance with some indeterminate master plan. Greater, even, than the sublime forces of evil, is God who has "an over-ruling hand in all those things" (159). Rowlandson does not trouble her self too greatly in asking why God has allowed for the situation to be as it is because God-Sublime is, by definition, completely beyond human understanding.

Jonathan Edwards, the next pre-Romantic author that I examine, works with the notion of the sublime (pre-term, of course) in more complex ways. Rather then positing the sublime as a simple dualism of good and/or evil, Edwards seems to see it as a union of sorts, or more precisely, the sensation occurring at the moment of synthesis. The sublime, for Edwards, is a fusion of disparate substances.

In his Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God Edwards, like Rowlandson, seems to develop the notion of the sublime as represented by absolute good and evil (God and man respectively). However, having cultivated both the notion that his own wicked sinfulness is the equivalent of "heaping infinite upon infinite, and multiplying infinite by infinite," and that God’s grace and goodness is beyond human understanding (in his Personal Narrative), Edwards works with the intersection of the two as being the site of the sublime emotion. Edwards’ sublime is the space in which sublime evil (man) becomes conscious of (touches, if you will) sublime good (God).

The sublime – "delight" for Edwards’ purposes – is properly understood as "a religious feeling that approximates a physical sensation, recognizing always that supernatural and natural ones are actually very different" (N 175). It is the moment between worldly and spiritual sensation; perhaps the apex of the physical and the lowest point of the spiritual. In this moment, which I will refer to as liminal (the anthropological term for the space between two defined states), man’s corporal frame entertains intimations of a spiritual nature.

In his Personal Narrative, Jonathan Edwards describes his passionate relationship with God in terms of an integration. It is

Note his impetus to be "swallowed up in God." Elsewhere Edwards has described his impulse as the desire "to be emptied and annihilated" and subsequently filled with God (184). This union (or "sense" of a union) involving the self and God is initiated by an "abstraction" of the soul from the physical, nevertheless, there is a consequent physical sensation. This liminal moment of union is beyond the physical, and thus, it is necessarily beyond language. Edwards is only able to relay the experience as the "sweet conjunction" by which the "appearance of everything was altered" (N 178).

James Fenimore Cooper, the final author in my analysis, is one of the first writers of the period delineated as being the American Romantic. His fiction reflects the sensibilities of the period and, for my purposes, he develops the notion of the sublime to a greater extent than either Rowlandson or Edwards. In his classic novel, The Last of the Mohicans, Cooper explores the sublime in scores of novel venues.

One sees the sublime as reflected in nature, which is decidedly liminal. The vistas in which Cooper’s characters find themselves are of an exquisitely appalling disposition. In as much as there is splendor and beauty in the landscape, there is also horror and great menace. The characters enter these surroundings and find themselves between majesty and abhorrence and they are repeatedly overwhelmed by the sublimity of the experience. Quite early in the novel the reader is told that Cooper’s heroines perceive their environs as presenting "romantic, though not unappalling beauties" and throughout the duration of the novel nature is consistently referred to in terms of imposing oppositions (49).

Another locale of the sublime in Cooper’s tale, is in the constitution the characters themselves. Beyond even the prototypical romantic protagonist, certain characters in The Last of the Mohicans are sublime in that they represent a convergence of polar substances. If, upon encountering these characters on the page, one is able to conceive of their actuality, (perhaps through "a faculty of the mind surpassing every standard of sense") one cannot help but feel as though "in comparison…everything [and everyone] else is small." The principle figures whose temperaments, acts, and very being betray such transcendent composition, are (I believe); Magua, Cora, and Uncus.

Magua, the fierce Huron chief who proves to be the protagonists’ most vicious and proficient adversary is an archetypical sublime personage. When the reader is first introduced to Magua we see that he simultaneously inspires "pity, admiration and horror" (19). He is in his physique magnificent, but in his character malevolent. He is a beautiful being who has been deeply and unjustly scared by life yet he remains ‘unbowed,’ if you will. He is be composed of extreme passions, which transform him into a creature of the sublime.

Uncus the brave, fierce, but noble hearted young Mohican is another personification of the sublime. Our author describes him as having eyes "alike terrible and calm" (52). He is, to be sure, a pureblooded Mohican, but he possesses some transcendent quality by which he appears to move beyond the sensibilities of other men. His essence is more attuned to nature than the most seasoned of men. He is often described in animalistic terms (248). After escaping the camp of the Huron by dressing the skin of the bear, the reader is informed that "Uncus cast his skin, and stepped forth in his own beautiful proportions" (275). Something in the mixed nature of Uncus makes it unnecessary to qualify the either "his" in the aforementioned sentence. Uncus seems to move effortlessly beyond the limitations of physicality, thereby assuming sublime magnitude.

The final sublime figure that I will discuss is Cora, the eldest daughter of Colonel Munro and the subject around whose desirability the action of the tale revolves. She is the quintessential dark maiden; the "dark-eyed" woman who, nevertheless, seems to move beyond that archetype by integrating dark and light, the result of which is diffused color. Note the syntheses of polarities in the following passage:

Later the reader is to learn of Cora’s mixed heritage and the allusions to her extraordinarily "rich blood" become more that just symbolic praise of her laudable character traits (i.e. courage, selflessness, wisdom). In her liminal status, Cora has surpassed either black or white. She has assimilated these two races into her being and become a being far greater.

It is interesting to note that all of our sublime characters are drawn to each other, even as they are repelled by one another. Note that it is Cora who is, in our first scene, captivated by the ‘terrible beauty’ of Magua’s lithe figure, and Cora is also instinctively drawn to Uncus. Magua and Uncus are, for their parts, both drawn to the "dark-eyed woman" and similarly drawn and repelled by each other. Much of the passion and the violence of the novel is precipitated by the intense nature of these three characters. One particular encounter between Uncus and Magua clearly illustrates this phenomenon:

The sublimity of Magua, Uncus, and Cora draw them to each other, pit them against one another, and confer mythical proportions to their struggles.

At the end of Cooper’s tale our sublime figures must all perish. Something in the quality of their temperament, some glorious dissimilarity makes them unfit to live among men. Their lives are characterized by an intensity that hastens them to their deaths, but then, their sublime vitality was always already beyond this world. Those whose lives these splendid creatures fleetingly touched, are exceedingly privileged, for in so doing those mortals have, connected to some energy or quality beyond human contemplation; some sublime essence.

Works Cited